This is one of my posts where I “review” Star Trek episodes. I will be giving each one a star rating. sometimes will make some comments about non-political parts of them that I like or don’t like. I’ll sometimes use the issues raised in the episode to discuss similar issues in real life. And I will sometimes simply high-light the progressive politics of ST. ST is in-line with the three original themes of this blog, as I explain in the first ST post where I offer some general thoughts about ST.
I’m not very familiar with The Original Series and there might be some small amount of material there that would affect what I say about Star Trek (i.e. how often religion is mentioned)
Lastly. multi-culturalism is such a pervasive theme in ST that I only comment on it when it goes beyond the norm (i.e. inter-species partners).
There are several episodes in VOY that involve the question of whether or not holograms are alive, and/or feature conflict between holograms and organic beings. I’m going to ignore that part of VOY, it’s a bit too philosophical, and comparing the maltreatment of holograms to the maltreatment of, for example, Black people, seems stupid. Although I kind of make an exception for The Doctor (it’s impossible to be a fan of ST and not do that) I lean towards saying that holograms are not life forms, but I don’t feel like going into it.
“Critical Care” See this for a plot summary.
In general a good political episode about health-care. It’s basically criticising how an elite get excellent care, even preventative care that isn’t neccessary at the moment. Something similar happens in real life today where 10s of millions don’t have insurance; many who do have insurance have limited options, have to pay a lot out of their pockets, have high premiums and deductibles and frequently their insurance company denies coverage.
What happened in this episode is similiar to what happens with health-care in America. In this episode The Doctor’s criticism of their health care system can be seen as reflecting how the Federation feels about that. I'm a supporter of the Single-payer (Canadian) model for health care.
There is one more time when a Starfleet officer and (in this case) Neelix each individually engage in questionable interrogation tactics. I wouldn’t call them torture, but they’re not far off from that. Something similar happened with the administrator of the hospital the Doctor is working at. What the Doctor does is a little questionable, but the idea of giving the administrator a chance to experience what most of the patients experience seems good.
I give it four stars out of five.
“Inside Man” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode. I give it two stars out of five.
“Body and Soul” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode, but I do like how Jeri Ryan has to play Seven of Nine as if she were the Doctor.
I give it three stars out of five.
“Nightingale” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode. One thing I’d like to note is that their failure to promote Kim is ridiculous- Tuvock got TWO promotions.
No comments:
Post a Comment